The Emergency Situation Management Committee decided today to lift the state of emergency in Yaha district of Thailand’s Yala province, leaving only 17 districts out of 33 in the three southern provinces of Thailand still under a state of emergency, Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai said after the committee’s meeting.
He said that he had raised the question at the meeting about whether the current policy and strategy, which have been in place in the Deep South for more than two decades, remain relevant and effective or whether they should be revamped, because the armed insurgency persists and peace has not yet been restored.
Phumtham disclosed that, at the meeting, Chatchai Bangchuad, secretary-general of the National Security Council, had promised to come up with an answer within a month.
Commenting on former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s role as an advisor to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, while Malaysia holds the ASEAN chair, the defence minister said he is optimistic that Thaksin’s new role could be useful in efforts to resolve the conflict in the restive region.
He dismissed concerns that people in the Deep South may still distrust the Pheu Thai party and Thaksin and that this may pose an obstacle to the government’s efforts to end the armed conflict and to restore peace, insisting that the government is determined to end the conflict through negotiation.
